{"id":34213,"date":"2026-09-11T22:39:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T22:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=34213"},"modified":"2026-09-11T22:39:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T22:39:48","slug":"a-week-before-christmas-i-heard-my-daughter-say-send-all-8-kids-over-i-was-stunned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=34213","title":{"rendered":"A Week Before Christmas, I Heard My Daughter Say: \u201cSend All 8 Kids Over\u201d\u2014I Was Stunned"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\"><strong>A Week Before Christmas, I Overheard My Daughter Planning My Christmas Without Me<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">A week before Christmas, I was making coffee when I heard my daughter Amanda talking on the phone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">I quietly approached and heard her say, <strong>\u201cJust leave all eight grandkids with Mom. She has nothing else to do anyway. We\u2019re going to the hotel and have some peace.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">I froze.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">Amanda explained that Martin had already booked a hotel at the coast. Robert and Lucy agreed. They would enjoy their vacation while I watched all eight children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">\u201cMom has experience,\u201d she laughed. \u201cShe already bought the gifts and paid for dinner. We just have to show up on the 25th, eat, open presents, and leave.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\"><strong>Perfect.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">That word broke something inside me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">Perfect for them. Not for me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">I put my coffee down, my hands trembling with an anger I had never felt before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">For years, I had always been the mother who said yes.<\/p>\n<p>But this Christmas, I decided things would be different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Week Before Christmas, I Overheard My Daughter Planning My Christmas Without Me A week before Christmas, I was making coffee when I heard my daughter Amanda talking on the phone. I quietly approached and heard her say, \u201cJust leave all eight grandkids with Mom. She has nothing else to do anyway. We\u2019re going to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/albotips.com\/?p=34213\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;A Week Before Christmas, I Heard My Daughter Say: \u201cSend All 8 Kids Over\u201d\u2014I Was Stunned&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34214,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34215,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34213\/revisions\/34215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albotips.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}